RIGHT OF WAY: Bicyclists say courtesy needed for harmony on the roads

From potholes to sand to narrow streets to wily drivers, conditions on South Shore roads aren’t particularly conducive to bike riding. But that hasn’t kept enthusiasts from entering the traffic fray, advocating for improvements and urging their fellow bikers to conduct themselves in a way that doesn’t enrage motorists

William Thomas was pedaling around Quincy to get some fresh air, as is his habit. He was also looking around for unredeemed scratch tickets on main roads, but once he hit a residential street he stopped scanning the pavement.

That turned out to be a mistake, as he was approaching a water-filled pothole.

“You think you’re going straight, and then all of a sudden I took a fall,” Thomas recalled.

A few weeks after the March 10 wipeout, the Germantown resident reported that he was still feeling some aches. He was also grumpy about city hall’s response to his phone calls about road hazards for bicyclists.

South Shore roads aren’t particularly conducive to bike riding, for reasons ranging from potholes to sand and from tight streets to unconcerned drivers. But that hasn’t kept cyclists from entering the fray, advocating for improvements and urging fellow bicyclists to mind their road manners.

“There are people that yell and scream and they want dedicated bike lanes,” said David Gilbert, an avid biker from Plymouth and owner of Gilly’s Cycling Adventures, a Plymouth repair shop. “I am conservative when it comes to politics and money. I think if people would just give and take a little more, it’s not as dangerous as people make it sound.”

Statistics from South Shore police departments show a relatively low overall number of accidents involving bicycles, though there have been some recent upticks.

There were 27 accidents involving bicycles in Quincy and nine in Weymouth last year, four-year highs in those communities.

Gilbert, who does a lot of riding in Plymouth, Kingston and Duxbury, said drivers are learning to get along with bicyclists. He said it’s becoming increasingly unusual for him to hear about incidents like the one in which a group of teenagers pulled up beside him in car on Route 44 and tried to push him off his bike.

Gilbert pointed out that cyclists are not a unified lot, and have differing views on how conciliatory they feel they have to be to drivers.

“There are people that ride $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 bikes, and they’re the ones that think, ‘Hey, I have the right to be here,’ and they don’t care about cars,” he said. “And those are the people who get hit.”

Patrick McDermott, Norfolk County’s registrar of probate, lives in Quincy Center and bikes throughout the city.

He said it’s important to realize that some people “might not be comfortable (driving near bicycles). Bikers have to be aware that they’re sharing the road. It’s got to be a mutual agreement about how the roads work.”